And yet to the extent you are using that dead person’s name/ID/credentials, you are leaving clues by which you can be tracked. To have much hope of success, you’ll need to pick a corpse with no friends or relatives.
There is also the point that you will have to be believed to have been in NO when the disaster hit for your apparent death there to be easily readily accepted. If there’s any skepticism, they’ll soon be checking things like dental records and thus rejecting the notion that it’s you.
In the age of computerized records, I think the chances of this working are slim.
Also one without a motrgage, child support, or other debts, or outstanding arrest warrants, wanted by The Mob or a drug dealer he or she had burned. I’d not risk it.
Wouldn’t the SSA notice a dead person applying for a new SS card? They do keep track of when people die. At one point you could look dead people up in an online database by their SSN.
Funny you (OP) should ask that, I have been wondering the same thing. What I *really *wonder is how easy it would have been for somebody to get rid of someone amidst the chaos. Are all bodies that will be recovered checked for “foulplay”? If someone were tired of his/her wife/husband and he/she stayed behind in NO he/she could have easily gotten rid of his/her spouse. *That *would be a great movie plot.
